


Haunted

by RavenWhitecastle



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Canon, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 08:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14160900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenWhitecastle/pseuds/RavenWhitecastle
Summary: They all have nightmares. They all have ghosts. But they don't ever talk about them.





	Haunted

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to tag this as thoroughly as possible, it's not necessarily graphic and the deaths are (mostly) canon and briefly mentioned, but I didn't want any unpleasant surprises. This piece is short, gritty, and pretty dark. The members of Team Machine (main three) deal with the aftermath of all the violence they see in their line of work. I came up with it trying to go to sleep last night, and figured there wasn't much more to do with it except share.  
> UPDATE: Added Fusco.

They all have nightmares.

It was to be expected, with everything they had seen and done. Unavoidable. Predetermined, Finch would have said, had it ever come up in conversation. But, of course, it never does. No one talks about the demons they fought in the dark.

John dreams of ghosts. Jessica and Joss come to him, taunting him, accusing him. _You murdered us,_ they whisper, _You killed us by doing nothing._ Somehow that is worse that reliving it, which he does. He dreams of Joss's blood staining his hands. He dreams of Peter. But it's worse when Joss and Jessica appear. They corner him, and he wakes up weeping, clutching his pillow, shaking, shuddering. He doesn't sleep much anymore.

Finch relives the day of the explosion. The explosion itself, often, but sometimes he dreams of Grace, watching her search for him, seeing her pick up the book he had used to propose. The nightmares seem to last for ages. The moment itself had been long and horrible- in dreams it stretches into forever. He wakes in a cold sweat, tangled in the sheets, his bad leg aching and aching and _aching_.

Fusco dreams of Simmons, and Detective Petersen- the crooked cops who kidnapped him, tortured him, broke his fingers. But he doesn’t dream of the torture, not happening to him. He dreams that it’s happening to his son. The nightmares alternate between watching them hurt Lee, and listening to his son die over the phone. When he wakes, when the shaking subsides, he makes a full breakfast for Lee before he goes to school. They eat together. Lionel can’t go back to sleep anyway, and he gets to spend time with his boy. Reminding himself that Lee is alive, thanks to Shaw.

Root watches Shaw die, over and over and over again. It is almost always at the hand of Martine, in the basement of the stock exchange. That one is the hardest, because it feels so real. She can still see the bullet casings hitting the floor, smell the sharp sting of metal, feel Reese and Fusco pulling her away from the elevator doors, but everything is silent. She can't even hear herself screaming until she wakes up. She wakes up and she's still screaming. When the panic ceases, she leaves, before the police arrive to investigate.

They all have nightmares. Demons that follow them into the night. Monsters that hide under the bed. But when the day comes, when they have a new number, they can forget the nightmares for a while. Finch doesn't think about Grace for hours at a time. John doesn't blame himself for what happened. Fusco isn't afraid for his son's life. Root is hell bent on her new purpose and for a brief moment she forgets what Sameen tasted like. And sometimes, it's enough.


End file.
